


Ten Little Things

by wisting



Category: The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: But not always, Canon Compliant, Childhood stuffs, Family, Humour, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2017-12-30 15:18:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1020248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisting/pseuds/wisting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten little things about the Johnsons. Axl wanted a sister when he was a kid. May contain spoilers including season 3.</p><p>Chapter 5: ANDERS ANDERS HI GUYS I'M VERY EXCITED ABOUT THIS CHAPTER if you're only going to read one chapter or one of my works READ THIS ONE.</p><p>With the remembering comes the taste of the curly-haired girl with do-gooder eyes and lips he never got to kiss, the girl who's the only one in the world who he can be sure understands beyond words how the sickening mix of desire and shame and screaming need feels like, and he shifts in bed, gripping his sheets, gut twisting with the wanting of it that he doesn’t have the right to admit to anyone. Bragi whispers of skin and tongues and hearts beating against each other and Anders nearly rips his sheets in half.</p><p>They held hands, and she left when he was weak and unconscious and she left and everyone wept for Axl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Johnsons

1.  All three brothers have a soft spot for Axl. None of them tell him that though, not even Anders although they all know Axl would be petulantly annoyed because _I’m all grown up now, Mike, I can take care of myself!_

 

2.  They actually used to like having things. Half the time things were just an excuse for Olaf to pass drugs around. And it went some way towards making up for the loss of a mother. Olaf gave them the room to talk about their feelings in a way that didn’t impugn their manhood, and they took it.

It’s only when things become necessary, after the world turned deadly serious, that they stop liking things. Especially after Anders nearly died.

 

3.  There’s a bit of Johan in all of them, though they hate to admit it. Anders’s inheritance is pretty obvious. Ty’s got the romantic part of him that kept Elisabeth from throwing him out when the hitting started. Mike … Mike has the ugliest part of Johan. It takes a hell of a lot for Mike to blow, but when he does, even Anders steps back because there’s a horribly familiar look in Mike’s eyes, one that whispers of barely suppressed violence. In a way it’s poetic justice – Mike was the one who took Johan’s side, Mike deserves to have the worst of him.

Axl? Nobody’s quite sure, but surely he can’t have escaped the taint.

Or maybe there’s a bit of good in Johan that nobody knows about, not even his father the oracle. Johan’s unwitting gift to the one son whose life he never was a part of.

 

4.  Growing up, Axl’s the one who used to want a sister, if only for the sake of having someone to fill the eight-year gap between him and Ty. He had this vague feeling that a sister would have stopped the others picking on him so much, or treating him like a baby, or hurting his feelings so often. Mike had his hands full enough already to want another mouth to feed, thank you very much. Ty was happy as he was, plus he had enough female friends to make up for not having a sister, and Anders was slightly creeped out when once, semi-drunk, he wondered what if he had a hot sister then would he still want to …?

After Elisabeth died, one of the rare moments Mike and Anders were completely at harmony with each other was when Axl announced at dinner that he’d picked Ty to be his replacement sister. Which, translated, means that both of them choked on their soup and spent the next ten minutes on the kitchen floor howling with laughter while Ty chased Axl around the kitchen and Axl was shrieking _but it’s a good thing! It’s a good thing, Ty!_

 

5.  Mike made a pretty good dad after a while. Once he’d stopped visiting Rob every day, he pulled his head in enough to get a job and make sure the house ran smoothly. Sure, Anders was cooperative only when he felt like it, but Ty was a good kid and Axl was doing well, all things considered. That is, when he wasn’t sulking. Axl liked sulking a bit too much.

All in all, though, Mike thinks he did okay. They’re all a bit battered, a bit messed up, but they’re all right, this raggle-taggle family he inherited at 21. They’ll be fine.

 

6.  None of them ever thought to be angry with Olaf because he only had the one rule. Never hit a woman. That’s great, but then what about the kids, Olaf, what about the children?

And when Johan sailed back into their lives, the three older brothers only said, _why did you hit Mum?_ Nobody, not even them, notices that neither they nor Olaf said, _why did you hit Ty? Why did you hit Anders?_

_How could you abandon us?_

Axl’s the only one who asks the last question. He’s the only one who never knew a father. Mike filled Johan’s shoes pretty well, better in fact, but they’re still not his shoes.

 

7.  To say that Anders is good at annoying people and/or pissing them off whenever he has a fancy to is an understatement. That’s still normal though. The thing that truly outrages the rest of them is that Anders doesn’t even have the decency to return the favour. It’s bloody hard to annoy him. It’s even harder to make him angry.

Still, it’s not impossible. Anders himself doesn’t realise this, but there’s one thing guaranteed to push his button and that’s to tell him he’s like Mike.

Colin knows though.

 

8.  During their teenage years, Olaf was their dreamer hippie cousin, wandering into their lives to upholster them and wandering back out again in a haze of I’ve-done-my-good-deed-for-the-month happiness. Yeah, he should have been around more to make up for the gaping hole left in their lives by his son and daughter-in-law, but the Johnson boys will take what they can get. It’s not like they have particularly high standards when it comes to parental figures.

 

9\.  Axl never really knew what happened at Anders’s 21st birthday party. The three older boys, they didn’t have to say anything to each other to know that none of them would ever tell Axl.

 

10.  See, Axl’s their guinea pig, their ultimate litmus test. If they helped form him and he turns out mostly okay – then the rest of them, they can’t be that bad. Maybe there’ll be hope for them too. Even for Anders.


	2. Ty

1.  Ty didn’t have a 21st party. After what happened at Anders’s 21st three years earlier, neither Mike nor Val could face the thought of going back there again. Anders offered to throw one, but Ty said it was all right, he didn’t care.

 

2.  But he did care, a little. After waiting for weeks for Mike to mention it, Ty brought it up at breakfast one day. He saw how Val stiffened, and how Mike’s mouth tightened as he carefully said, _Ty, I’m sorry mate, but –_ and left the sentence unfinished. So Ty said it didn’t matter, he was just asking, and left it at that. Yeah, he minded a bit, but he’d rather go without a party than bring up Anders’s banishment from the family all over again.

Besides, he didn’t exactly want everyone to realise just how many female friends he had.

 

3.  He turned down Anders’s offer because he knew it’d upset Mike and Val. Which was precisely why Anders was doing it, of course. But he still wondered a bit wistfully about what sort of booze and women Anders would have arranged for him. He stopped wondering after he found out about Bragi.

 

4.  The fridge repairman thing, he’d actually been interested in it before Hodr. He thought it was simple and undemanding. Anders just laughed at him for a bit too long, then chucked him a bottle of champagne and said _you better take this then, it’ll be the last bottle of champagne you’ll taste_. Mike raised an eyebrow but said _okay, mate, whatever you want_. Axl asked if he'd get a treat when Ty got his first pay cheque.

Val tried to talk him out of it a little – sat him down at the table and spoke earnestly about _university_ and _exploring options_ and _education is so important, Ty_ , but she soon saw that he really didn’t want to go to university. Mike squeezed her shoulder, and she gave up, leaning back with a sigh and a smile, saying _all right, Ty, as long as you’re sure you’ll be happy_.

Ty didn’t mind. It meant Val cared, after all, and he liked that.

After he turned 21, he kind of wished Val had succeeded in talking him out of it. Maybe it’d have made a difference. Yay Hodr.

 

5. Ty doesn’t have a favourite brother, but if he had, it might be Anders. Maybe because Anders wouldn’t take care of him like Mike does and doesn’t need taking care of like Axl does; maybe because Anders is fun even if he is irresponsible and thoughtless like Mike says, grinding his teeth when Ty comes back late at night after a few too many drinks; maybe simply because they’re closest in age.

Maybe because Ty notices that when Anders doesn’t know someone’s looking at him, Anders sometimes doesn’t look entirely as happy as he brags about being.

Or maybe it’s because Anders is nobody’s favourite. Even if he deserves it.

 

6.  It’s true that Axl listens to Ty the most. Ty doesn’t think it’s much of a compliment though – he’s pretty sure it’s mainly because Mike orders Axl around a lot and nobody takes Anders’s advice if they’ve got more than one brain cell to rub together.

 

7.  She and Mike had been married for years now, but Ty still liked the feeling Val brought into the house. Of course Mum was better, but Val made a pretty good replacement. She turned their Auckland house into a home, adding those feminine touches that would never occur to Mike, things like pictures on the walls or proper bathmats on the floor instead of someone’s old shirt. With her around, they had a proper set of parents, not just two older brothers trying to play dad and mum. They weren’t just four brothers left alone, they were a family.

Well, sort of. Anders was like a broken toenail, really – he wasn’t properly there and he wasn’t properly gone, sometimes it twinged but mostly you forgot or got used to it, and sometimes you even wondered whether it’d be better to pull it off entirely although you knew you never could. Never would.

 

8. Ty doesn’t want pets. He vaguely remembers having a dog once, but Tricky died and Dad wouldn’t get another one and Mum didn’t much care for pets. He was okay with that, because he was still crying over Tricky and thinking, with all the bitter philosophy a six-year-old could manage, about how unfair life was when it took away the things you loved.

After he lost Elisabeth when he was fourteen; lost her when he found out she hadn’t died, she’d chosen to abandon them; lost her again when Agnetha turned up and he realised Mum wasn’t the loving, perfect mother he remembered; then lost her a fourth time when the forest burnt down … after Dawn forgot him, he realised maybe he’d gotten it right all along.

 

9\.  Sometimes he freaks out quietly about the number of female friends he has and how often he keeps striking out. What’s wrong with him?

You’d think that a brother would be sympathetic and all, seeing as how it’s a pretty sensitive area for any man. But not Anders. Anders mocks him any chance he gets, but the strange thing is somehow Anders’s amusement makes it seem not that bad since Anders obviously doesn’t think it’s a big deal. It’s weirdly comforting, even if Ty still acts annoyed … _is_ annoyed. It’s the taunts about Mr Freezy and _so is it like sucking a popsicle then_ that gives Ty enough confidence to talk to Mike about it so he can get some actual advice.

 

10.  Yeah, Mike can get overbearing and controlling sometimes. Ty never holds that against him though. He’ll never forget everything Mike’s done for them, even if Anders has. Between the family and Rob, Mike hardly had a day to himself for the better part of a decade.

Okay fine, sometimes Ty does get exasperated, but he knows Mike’s trying his best and that makes up for a lot. It’s more than Dad ever did. ~~~~


	3. Axl

1.  He called Anders because to be honest Mike could still scare him a little even if Axl now towers over Mike. Being brought up by your brothers is a definite disadvantage. No matter how old he gets, he’ll still be the kid who used to wail when a particular commercial came on TV because clowns frightened him. Even now, if Mike yells, Axl will do as he’s told.

Whereas Anders, he’ll breeze in and beam at the terrifying warden and make everything all right. And in the car all he’ll do is laugh and say _next time give a fake name, moron, and who dresses up as a Smurf to go on a pub crawl anyway? And here I thought my baby bro was growing up._ Best of all, he won’t tell Mike. Heck, he’ll think hiding Axl’s little stint behind bars from Mike is the funniest thing about the whole night, even including how Axl has to walk out from the holding cell with his butt cheeks showing because his costume ripped – which is why he was pulled in for public indecency in the first place.

And that’s exactly what happened.

 

2.  Truth be told, they became friends mostly because they didn’t have another choice. Axl was the new kid from Hawke’s Bay – did you hear he used to live on a _farm_ – and Zeb was … Zeb. But that was just how they started being friends.

 

3.  Axl was a bit afraid when Ty turned twenty-one. Bad things seem to happen when his brothers turn twenty-one. Mum died on Mike’s 21st. Anders got thrown out of the house for good on his 21st. What’s going to happen to Ty?

He told himself he was a big boy now, he was thirteen and he wasn’t going to be scared or superstitious. So when Ty only came back a little quieter and distant, he was relieved. It took him a while to notice the change. They weren’t a huggy sort of family, but it was a little weird that now Ty didn’t even like brushing fingers if Axl handed him a cup. A little hurt, Axl asked Mike about it, but Mike said _don’t worry about Ty. It’s not you, mate, he still loves you. He’s growing up and he’s just developing a … personality?_

That made no sense to Axl, who was old enough to know that “personality” meant Mike was talking complete crap, I’m not a baby anymore thanks Mike! Still, it was better than the nameless dread that had been hanging over him, so he quickly got used to it and wrote Ty down as his extra weird brother.

By the time he got to his own twenty-first, he’d completely forgotten he’d ever been worried. Probably a mistake, on hindsight.

 

4.  Axl held a bit of a grudge against Mike for a while. Surely whatever Anders did couldn’t be that bad. Not bad enough to tell him to never come back again and mean it. If Axl just understood _why_ … but Mike wouldn’t explain and Ty wouldn’t explain and Anders would only laugh and say that Mike doesn’t think being drunk is an excuse for mistaking his closet for the bathroom.

 

5.  Red was passion, was laughter lurking in eyes, was heat and kisses and nights of skin against skin. Gaia was all those things and more. Anders didn’t belong in there. Not there. Not with Gaia.

Turns out Gaia didn’t belong there either. Somehow Anders knew. Whether it was because he’d been with an Idunn before or because he was Bragi, Anders knew that red didn’t belong to Gaia. Green was subtle and sophisticated and quiet and alive, and that was Gaia. Idunn.

Axl has never felt so stupid, never felt so lost as when he stood in his own living room and stared at a red apple tree.

 

6.  If only he hadn’t been freaked out about whether he could ever change back, he could have really have enjoyed himself.

Boobs, dude. How often did guys get their own personal set of knockers?

 

7. Axl doesn’t know everything. Okay, he doesn’t even know much, as Mike will tell anyone. But one thing he knows, and that’s that you only ever trust Anders when you know what he’s getting out of it, whether it’s amusement at your expense or a shot at getting his proper powers.

He mentions this theory on one of the rare times the three of them get together – his twenty-second birthday, actually. They’re all pleasantly tipsy by then, otherwise he wouldn’t bring Anders up at all. Mike snorts and drinks to that. Ty looks thoughtful but does the same. The next day none of them remembers that bit of the conversation.

 

8.  He’s sure he wishes that he’d never met Agnetha, but he doesn’t know whether he’s glad Johan reappeared in his life or he’d rather never have known his father.

Whichever it is, he appreciates Mike a little more. And Ty. And Olaf, a bit. Anders not so much.

 

9\.  Axl wishes he had Anders’s charm. Anders is always so sure of himself, damn him. Axl can’t understand how it works, but whatever Anders does, it works like, well, a charm. It’s not fair that Anders has a different girl every week, and here Axl is, nearly twenty-one and still a virgin, thanks to bloody Mike’s consistently lousy timing.

It’s not fair. Of all his three older brothers, he winds up like  _Ty?_  It’s not  _fair_.

 

10.  Standing in that clearing with his long-sought Frigg, Axl finds himself thinking not about the long quest, or how important this moment is. Instead he’s thinking about a dorky idiot sitting alone in a messy flat, waiting to forget his best friends and flatmates.

He won’t let Zeb go, he promises silently, even as Odin’s power suddenly surges through him in a blinding flash of light and he’s yelling. Odin or not, this is one promise that he will keep. Though the heavens should fall. Though the heavens should fall.


	4. Mike

1\.  Mike wonders how on earth did Axl get to be so much taller than the rest of them. Maybe growing up with a lot of yelling in the house stunts a child’s growth. He brought it up with Val once, but Val only laughed. _Maybe it’s because he’s so much younger that he didn’t have to fight for food with you three savages. Besides, look at your cousin Olaf. He’s tall too._

Mike would like to think that it’s because he built a better family than Johan did; that it’s because Axl was spared the nightmare the three older boys went through. But then again who knows?

 

2\.  Ty was a huge help in the months when he was trying to pick up the pieces of Elisabet’s fake death and his own desertion. It took him a while to notice, but eventually he realised that Ty was the only one he didn’t have to fight with, the only one who’d do as he’s told. It wasn’t because Ty was naturally obedient – Mike knew him well enough to understand that he was doing it to make Mike’s life easier.

It meant a lot to him. He never figured out how to tell Ty that, but he thought maybe Ty knew anyway.

 

3\.  The thing is, Anders can actually not care. He can see the family struggling, and he can shrug and walk away. Mike can’t. Not even about Anders. He can’t do to Anders what Anders does to him. It drives Mike up the wall.

 

4\.  Often Mike wishes he could throw Ullr off his back, get rid of all the god stuff hanging around his family like a hereditary curse. Rob wouldn’t be in a coma. But then he looks at Val. He wouldn’t have her if it weren’t for Ullr – but he also wouldn’t have the burden of guilt he’s been carrying around for fifteen years.

If he’s honest with himself, he doesn’t know what he’d do if he actually had the choice to give Ullr up after his 21st birthday. But it’s quite easy to keep busy so he doesn’t have to think about it. Every time he wakes up from dreaming pleasantly of that time, he pushes it away guiltily, kisses Val a little more carefully, works a little later. And also takes a little longer before he goes to see Rob again.

  
   
5\.  Looking back, he can see where he went wrong with Anders. Anders never did respond well to threats or coercion. Anders always liked things his way and always would, but Mike supposes Johan only worsened Anders’s reaction to being forced into doing things.  If he had everything to do over … he wouldn’t have tried to force Anders to stay at home. Then Anders wouldn’t have been so gone.

Then again, maybe it wouldn’t have changed a thing.

 

6\.  It was his first instinct to kick up a fuss when Ty wanted to move out, but Val talked him out of it. _He’s growing up_ , she said, _it’s only natural. You’d have wanted to move out too eventually if your mum hadn’t died_.

She was right about him and right about letting Ty go. Ty came back often, and soon Mike grew used to having one brother less in the house … even enjoyed it a little.

Val laughed at him and told him if he wasn’t careful, he’d wind up starting to interrogate Ty’s lady friends to find out what their intentions were.

  
   
7\.  Mike will die before he admits that he’s kind of glad that Axl became Odin because then the four of them have to get together more often. He still doesn’t want Anders in his home life, but …

 

8\.  Ullr is ironic. Mike loves playing games, but now nobody will play with him because he has to deliberately throw the game in order to stop himself winning. At least Anders can turn Bragi off when he wants.

But when he looks at Ty, Mike’s much less unhappy with his lot.

 

9\.  Mike didn’t have a 21st party either. Elisabet certainly hadn’t planned one – she even refused to let Mike arrange the party at home himself, reminding him there were three younger kids around. Mike understood afterwards.

Rob had planned a night out with a bunch of old school friends, but after the shock of the forest, Mike told him no and refused to explain why. Instead he spent the day in a daze, locking himself in his room to play countless rounds of solitaire.

  
   
10\.  That’s why all three of them were in their own way trying to make Axl’s 21st good – Mike by throwing the party, Ty by turning up, Anders … well, Anders by staying away, initially. At least _one_ of them had to have a brilliant 21 st. Or just a good one. Screw that, a normal one would be nice too.

Pity it didn’t work out. Anders got blamed again. At least Axl got the right number hat.

Nobody’s entirely sure if that’s a good thing though. Not even Anders.


	5. ANDERS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ANDERS
> 
> ANDERS ANDERS
> 
> ANDERS ANDERS ANDERS

1\.  He minded that Ty forgave and Axl forgot. He minded that he was the only one who seemed to remember how Mike had been all but gone for half a year. Anders was the one making sure the house ran. For six whole months he did that because he had no choice, but the second Mike stepped back in the house, it’s him Axl ran to. Not that Anders wanted to hear all Axl’s stories about insects and play dates and the bloody stupid crayon drawing he’d done in class that day, unlike Mike he can’t be bothered to pretend he cares, but still.

Even so,  Anders is fair enough to admit that he wasn’t the most cordial brother during those months when they were learning the true meaning of that horrible, archaic word – _orphan_.

Not Mike though. Mike was having fun during that time. Anders doesn’t think Mike ever noticed that they were orphans; just went straight into playing dad and hasn’t stopped since.

 

2\.  Elisabet didn’t love Anders as much as she loved Ty. Johan barely noticed him; it was his _number one son_ Johan liked best.

That’s okay. It’s a big world, there are lots of people in it, and half of them have breasts.

Besides, Elisabet once made a birthday cake for him, and there was the weekend when Johan took him and Mike fishing. That’s something, isn’t it?

 

3\.  He’s not entirely sure why he named it Johnson Public Relations. Ego? Or trying to stake his claim as part of the family?

Who cares, it’s not important. What is important is that it’s a place he built for himself and a creation that he loves as much as he’s capable of loving anything. It’s just that “Anders” ranks much higher on his priority list than “JPR”.

 

4\.  Anders was the first and only one to go to university. He has ambition. Not like the rest of them.

He’s quite proud of it. Even if he barely passed because he was busy partying and thinking up creative ways to get his end away.

Someday he’ll be rich and powerful, and he’ll be able to wipe out the memory of scrounging and saving so there’s food on the table, or working to exhaustion to pay off that stupid debt Mike invented to stop him moving out. And nobody will be able to touch him.

 

5\.  Sometimes in the place between sleep and awake, he wishes he knew how he felt about Helen. She was there then she was dead, and something in him curls up sick. He doesn’t know if it’s normal trauma at seeing someone shot dead with an arrow meant for you, or if it’s Bragi wanting Idunn, or if it’s Anders wanting sex … or if it’s Anders wanting Helen who loved him.

If he only _knew_ , he could deal.

But he doesn’t, and she’s not around to help him figure it out, so he pushes it away, and soon he forgets except in those half-moments.

Helen had sad eyes, when she wasn’t laughing. She laughed a lot.

 

6\.  Anders doesn’t have many secrets. He shares things quite happily, and usually whoever he’s talking to ends up making faces and begging for less detail. To her own dismay, it’s often Dawn.

He does have at least one though. Nobody knows this, not even Ty, but after Dad sailed merrily off into the sunset for the last time, Anders stole an old T-shirt of his before Mum threw everything away. He stuffed it in the back of his closet, but it wasn’t too long before it was replaced with other souvenirs like dirty magazines and ripped panties.

He still has it. It’s stashed away in a box somewhere, long forgotten. But he still has it.

 

7\.  Anders was two seconds away from hiring the brunette when he remembered that he had one last chick lined up. Not being one to close off his options, he shooed her off with a promise to call and made sure his fly was done, but he was pretty sure she was The One. Then Dawn walked in the door, and for once Anders forgot about his dick.

She was just so bloody _earnest_.

Aside from her immense usefulness, he kept her for the sheer novelty of sincerity. Plus it’s easy and way too much fun to grind her last nerve. And he’s always liked blondes. His Dawnsie’s perfect for him.

And it stung some when she spent her last day with Ty, not him. She barely spared him a minute.

As he watched her walk away, he realised that all these years he’d been taking the piss out of Ty for being a starry-eyed romantic, baking cupcakes and bringing coffee and scones … nobody ever told him that that’s how you build a real relationship, on the little things, and that’s why Dawn doesn’t care enough to stay with him instead of Ty.

It's so quiet in his office.

 

8\.  There are nights he can’t sleep for remembering how he woke up soaked in his own blood, shirt clinging to him and stinking of iron. Nearly dying at his own baby brother’s hand isn’t something even Anders can shake off easily. Mixed in are guilt and resentment and simple fear that Axl might do it again.

With the remembering comes the taste of the curly-haired girl with do-gooder eyes and lips he never got to kiss, the girl who's the only one in the world who he can be sure understands beyond words how the sickening mix of desire and shame and screaming need feels like, and he shifts in bed, hands gripping his sheets, gut twisting with the wanting of it that he doesn’t have the right to admit to anyone. Bragi whispers of skin and tongues and hearts beating against each other and Anders nearly rips his sheets in half.

They held hands, and she left when he was weak and unconscious and she left and everyone wept for Axl.

He’ll get over it. He has to. He _has_ to.

Eventually he does, at least well enough to put Gaia away in the shadows with Helen and Elisabet and Sara Carlsen, all those women he doesn’t know whether to want or hate. And life went on.

 

9\.  It’s very unexpected - and unwanted - but Anders, cocky careless Anders, gets serious when he’s drunk out of his mind. He will spill his guts to anyone listening, from slurring that _Mike sorry_   _wish didn't Val sorry Val I'm shorry_ to admitting he didn’t go for the money, he went because she asked and she was all the mother he could ever have and Anders has never been one to dwell on what should be. Once he even cried. And the next morning the silver-sharp embarrassment will seep through even the pounding headaches and vomiting. That’s why he almost never gets quite that drunk if he can help it. It’s too naked for him, Anders who sauntered starkers through the park on a dare.

 

10\.  He didn’t offer because he wanted to piss Mike and Val off. Well yes he did, but mostly it was for Ty. He felt a little bad that Ty was paying for what he, Anders, had done. And he didn’t like finding out that Mike and Val were still _that_ upset three years later. His natural response was to party the emotions away, and what better way to do it than by fixing Ty’s part of the problem at the same time?  
 ~~~~

 ~~~~He’s not sure whether he was more disappointed or relieved when Ty said no. Twenty-one year olds can cause a lot of damage. But he soon forgot about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The debt bit in 4 is part of a story half written, to be part of the Brothers of War series.
> 
> More on the Helen-Anders relationship in The Apple Chick.
> 
> Sara Carlsen in 8 is from Refuge.
> 
> A short story on the Elisabet/Agnetha-Anders relationship in 9 will be up soon.
> 
>  
> 
> It's so hard to keep Anders to ten points :(


End file.
